Mane Rok tackles police brutality from a different angle on the video for "This One's"

Taking one of the most compelling cuts from his album The Ugly Truth, Mane Rok enlisted a small army to help him create a video for the song "This One's," a track dealing with the timely and incendiary topic of police brutality. The video for the provocative tune -- which, as you might recall, the rapper commissioned a slew of remixes -- premiered a couple of weekends ago at Casselman's.

The version of "This One's" featured in the video is Time Line's remix of the original Mane Rok and Deejay Tense track. The video, directed by the Emergency Room (Vince Lance and Nache Green, aka N8G), re-creates notorious scenes of police brutality, locally and nationally, from Frank Lobato and Paul Childs to Amidou Diallo and Rodney King.

Each of the re-creations comes with a storyline, Mane reveals, a sort of "good cop/bad cop" scenario. The goal of the piece is not merely to raise the issue, but also to open up a dialogue exploring the devolution of the "bad cop," delving into his past and revealing why he reacts so violently and why he's prone to racial profiling.

In addition to Mane flexing his acting chops in the video, the clip features cameos from a number of familiar faces from the scene, including Xencs L. Wing, Es-Nine of Prime Element, Yonnas of the Pirate Signal, Bravo One of One Eyed Kings, Opt Won of Isolated Generation, Onit & Silla of TME, Network of Future Ref Crew and Ichiban. The video captures the emotional trauma associated with police brutality. Some of the scenes are a little gruesome, as the storyline re-enacts several well known scenes of brutality, but all in all, Mane Rok and the team from the Emergency Room paint a picture of accountability and hope.